100 women on 100 years of voting

100 women on 100 years of voting

In 1918, following years of bitter struggle, (some) women finally gained the right to vote. To mark this centenary, we asked 100 politicians and campaigners, including Nicola Sturgeon, Diane Abbott and Theresa May, to reflect – politically and personally – on this momentous anniversary

When the first British women gained the right to vote, the celebrations were muted. The Great War was still raging in February 1918, and the suffragette movement itself had splintered over whether to pause its campaign during the hostilities. “The pageantry and rejoicing… which in prewar days would have greeted the victory, were absent when it came,” reflected Sylvia Pankhurst in her 1931 book The Suffragette Movement. “The sorrows of the world conflict precluded jubilations.”

A century later, though, we should savour the triumph as fully as we can. The Representation of the People Act added 8.5 million women – those over 30 who owned property or were graduates voting in a university constituency – to the electoral roll. It also gave the vote to 5.6 million more men after their voting age was lowered to 21, and the property qualification abolished. The general election in December 1918 consulted an electorate three times the size of the one before it.

One victory led to another. The bar to women running for parliament was quickly removed, and the first female MP was elected that year (though, as an Irish republican, Constance Markievicz chose not to join the Commons). The next year, Nancy Astor took her seat, and was met off the train into London by joyful former suffragettes, one of whom gave her a badge declaring this to be a “new era”.

Yet progress for women has often felt painfully slow. When a 32-year-old, pregnant Harriet Harman was elected in 1982 there were still only 19 female MPs. The 2017 election was the first time more than 200 women were elected, 208 out of 650 seats. Ask female MPs now, and many worry the climate of vitriol on social media is putting off talented candidates, as is the spectre of sexual harassment. And there is still a “motherhood trap” – childless women are over-represented at the top level because it is still so hard to balance caring responsibilities with a political career.

Set against this are the achievements of the women’s movement. Maternity leave rights, equal pay, domestic violence legislation – all of these were hard fights, and they will never be truly won, because laws are not enough. When steep fees were introduced by Chris Grayling in 2013, the number of employment tribunals fell sharply – until the supreme court ruled that the charges were illegal four years later. It was a reminder that rights are of little use unless they can be enforced.

Still, we should be optimistic. Female MPs now have strength in numbers – they are rarely a lone voice in a room full of men, having to apologise for speaking at all. And true to the spirit of the suffragettes – who came from all kinds of political traditions – there is always quiet, cross-party feminist work happening in the Commons. A bill to tackle violence against women is one of the few non-Brexit pieces of legislation put forward by the government in this parliamentary session.

So what’s next? To commemorate the anniversary, here are politicians, campaigners and other prominent women on what the vote means to them – and where we should go next. Helen Lewis

Conservative prime minister since 2016I first voted in October 1974. I had just turned 18 and was at university. What does voting mean to me? What I say when I’m on the doorstep and speaking to women who say they might not vote, is that everybody should vote. It is their chance to have their say in who is running their country. There are women who gave up their lives to have the right to vote in this country and people who yearn, across the world, to have this freedom and so we should use it. I want everybody to vote – it’s hugely important.

Shadow home secretaryMy parents were keen voters. In the run-up to elections, my mum would pretend to Tory canvassers that she was a supporter, so they’d send a car round on election day – then she’d go and vote Labour. I was always excited about going to vote, so standing for election for the first time for Westminster city council in 1982 seemed extraordinary. Twelve years later, I was an observer at the first free elections in South Africa. Before dawn there were already queues of people. I watched them fill in their slip, and, before putting it in the ballot box, pause and look around. It was as if, even now, someone would tell them they couldn’t vote. I tell young people that story now to get them to think about the importance of voting. Parliament today is so different compared to 30 years ago. In 1987 [when Abbott first became an MP], women used to stand up to speak and men would shout you down. They can’t do that now.

Executive director of BME women’s campaigning group ImkaanHuge parts of our political system need to be dismantled and reconstructed. Yet despite this, voting means something to me, as both a right and a responsibility. I vote, even when I resent the process. This sense of duty is as much bound up in the past, as it is connected to today. I have the right to vote because of those who have gone before me. I think about this not only in the context of 100 years of votes for women, but also in the context of struggles around race and class. Thus, as we celebrate this centenary, I believe it is important to acknowledge painful truths, including that some prominent suffragettes were racist and anti-working-class, and that some women are still unable to vote. This “100 years” therefore has a more complex meaning for some of us. However, if we can hold these truths, we may also be able to challenge injustice, while imagining and creating an equal future.

Founder of the Everyday Sexism ProjectIt’s difficult to believe that it has only been 100 years since some women in the UK were granted the right to vote, the result of a tireless battle by countless brave campaigners. Recently, I learned about the remarkable life of Violet Ann Bland, a kitchen maid at Dudmaston Hall near Bridgnorth, Shropshire, who went on to be a passionate member of the Women’s Social and Political Union. Arrested for her activism in the name of women’s suffrage, she endured force-feeding in prison in 1912 and wrote in graphic detail about the experience. Walking into the voting booth last year, I thought of Violet and countless women like her whose names are little known, many of their stories forgotten. Yet, as recent revelations from Weinstein to Westminster have proved, we continue to fight their battles to this day. It has never been more important for women to participate in democracy, to share our stories and to raise our voices.

Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow since 2010For millions of people in Bangladesh, where I was born, the UK parliament has always been a beacon of democracy. Bangladesh is a country that only came into existence because of a fight for democracy, so I grew up with an acute sense of the need to fight for the right to self-determination. When I was six years old, there was another cycle of violence in Bangladesh following a military coup, which demonstrated how rights could be taken away literally overnight and instilled in me the need to continually fight to protect our rights. When I moved to the UK, to London’s East End, I had a profound sense of the history and heritage of the area from my wonderful schoolteachers, I learned about the suffragette movement and the many sacrifices made by women to get the right to vote. We must continue to promote our values and ideals so that our democracy can flourish.

Shadow foreign secretaryI’m the only Emily ever elected to parliament, which is strange given what an important name Emily is – Emily Wilding Davison, for example – and how many other Emilys are out there. I particularly feel it when it’s women who say they can’t be bothered voting. I say: “Why do you think your voice doesn’t count? Collectively, it’s up to us what government we get. If you can just use that little bit of power, and exercise your vote, why would you not turn up? Why are you not important? You are important.” The younger generation have every reason to be angry. My generation have all the pensions, we’ve warmed up the planet, eaten all the fish, killed all the tigers. We are a greedy generation. The younger generation will be the ones to suffer, and they should be angry. At the last general election, they turned up. Now they need to flex their muscles and highlight the intergenerational injustice.

Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords, 2001-2004My father’s mother was a suffragist and so was my mother [Vera Brittain]. Hearing from my parents what people like Mrs Pankhurst had gone through, I saw not voting as a betrayal. I don’t feel that as much now, though I think if you’re disillusioned with politics, your job is to fight the disillusionment, not just give up. I voted the minute it was legal to do so, when I was 21, and at every opportunity after that. Though I was in the rather paradoxical position of being the Labour agent for Chelsea for the 1950 election when I was 17 and not yet old enough to vote. I knew more about elected MPs than I did about voting. When I first got elected in 1964, there were 29 female MPs. Being a woman in parliament was pretty odd. I remember being patronised when I first got in – men literally patted me on the head and said: “That’s a very good speech dear.” That was quite a common attitude.

Writer and co-founder of the Women’s Equality partyI think voting is an incredibly important exercise in democratic rights and a duty. I will vote in any democratic process that I’m entitled to participate in, including those where I don’t like any of the candidates. One reason I co-founded the Women’s Equality party was hearing women talking about not using their vote because of the lack of options available. The fact that politics is not an easy space for women makes it more important for them to be involved, not less. In 1913, Emmeline Pankhurst said that the vote would create equality for women. Of course, that’s not the case. When you get involved in politics, you get a granular sense of what the obstacles are. In this centenary, we can celebrate what progress has been made, but we also have to recognise what hasn’t been achieved – the pay gap is just one example – and how much the rights and protections that have been achieved are now under threat.

Co-leader of the Green partyI vote because I believe that governments can change things for the better, but that doesn’t mean I believe that voting is the only route to change. So while I go to the ballot box every few years, I also believe that demonstrations, rallies and nonviolent direct action are hugely valuable parts of our democracy too. We undervalue democracy in this country, but pride ourselves on being its greatest defenders. If we really valued the vote, we’d make sure that elections were fair, and not stitched up by an archaic voting system. It must be totally overhauled. Whatever your take on the results of the EU referendum, it demonstrated that if you give people a say, they can be very political indeed, as citizens who feel they can be genuine agents for change. Ultimately, when people start to feel their actions make a difference, they step up.

Leader of the Scottish Conservative partyI was in my first year of university when I cast my first vote, in the 1997 general election. My mate told me that one of the student bars was showing the results through the night. What they didn’t tell me was that it had been hired by the university’s Labour club, so I was literally the only Conservative in a room of about 250 drunken Labour supporters, as every single Conservative seat in Scotland fell and there was a total wipeout. That was quite character-building. If you count up every woman who has ever been elected to the House of Commons in the past 100 years, you still wouldn’t be able to fill the green benches – it’s only 489 out of 650 seats. In many ways women are outperforming men – last year more women than men were offered places at Cambridge – but you still see a very small percentage of women in the military, the church, in business, in politics. So we still have a long way to go.

What does voting mean to you? Why is it important?

Former No 10 press officer, author of Exceeding My BriefThe act of voting I always find quite wonderful. I look at the expressions on other people’s faces at the polling office and occasionally they look as if they’ve just received communion. People died and shed blood for the right to vote. We’re lucky to have it – huge chunks of the world don’t.

Professor of education at Cambridge UniversityI grew up in a coalmining community in a solidly Tory area in Leicestershire. Both my mum and nan were inordinately proud to vote. My mum would put on a red dress to go to the church hall and we, her seven daughters, would wear red dresses too. My concern is that there’s a real deficit in terms of the representation of working-class women in parliament. Less than 1% of MPs are working-class women. It’s been a struggle to go from a coalmining background to becoming a Cambridge professor, but probably a lot easier than becoming an MP.

Helen Liddell

Labour MP for Monklands East (1994-1997) and Airdrie and Shotts (1997-2005), now a Labour peerI’ve been involved in politics since I was 15 or 16. Coming from my background – I’m a bus driver’s daughter from rural Lanarkshire – I saw the political process as being able to change my life. I was the first generation in my family to go to university and as time has gone on, there have been great changes for women. But we’re still not – with the current disputes at the BBC, and the problems that the #MeToo generation are highlighting – at the endgame.

Barrister, broadcaster and Labour peerVoting is fundamental to how I live my life. It speaks to my sense of myself as a person with agency: I don’t want to feel like I’m being told what to do by those who haven’t been elected to do so, and I want to have my say in their election. I still get a lump in my throat when I pick up that little stubby pen and I put my cross down, because voting is actually about liberty, about stopping tyranny. We might not like who wins, but they won’t be there for ever. If it doesn’t go my way, then I can gather as many like-minded individuals together as possible, and we can change it.

Labour MP for Wallasey since 1992We used to go to the ballot box as a family when I was a child. The importance of democracy should be taught in school, ingrained from a very young age. Change does happen. Even if the choices at the ballot box might not always be what you want, politics isn’t a spectator sport. To make it work, you have to get off the stands and on to the pitch.

Labour and Co-operative MP for Walthamstow since 2010Every time you vote is special, but voting is not enough. People usually see it as the endpoint, but I see it as the start of the conversation. I always say: “I’m probably your worst nightmare of an MP because I’m going to get you involved – but that’s how change will happen.”

Labour MP for Peckham (1982-1997) and Camberwell and Peckham since 1997Whatever the election, it’s a very solemn moment putting your cross in that box. I’m 67 and I’ve voted in every single election since I came of age but it doesn’t lose its solemnity. I also think about all the people around the world – and especially the women – who can’t vote, or have to vote the way their husbands or fathers tell them to vote. I’ve got that privilege that a lot of the women in the world still don’t have.

Estelle Morris

Labour peer, MP for Birmingham Yardley 1992-2005For youngsters now, we’ve got to constantly remind them that their vote does count. It might be one among millions, but when I got elected in Birmingham Yardley in 1992, I took the seat from the Tories by 162 votes. All it needed was for 82 people to vote the other way and I wouldn’t have won the seat.

Lola Young

Actress, author, and crossbench peerI became interested in politics young – growing up in care, watching what was happening with apartheid in South Africa – so being “allowed” to vote really felt like something. If you don’t vote, the world can change around you in a way over which you have no influence.

Jo Swinson

Liberal Democrat MP for East Dunbartonshire (2005-2015, 2017-present)I enjoy taking my son to vote with me – he was nine months old at the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 and I remember canvassing on the doorsteps with him in the baby carrier. By the 2016 Brexit referendum he was able to walk with me to the polling station before going to nursery. I felt so strongly that it was his future at stake, and of course I was devastated by the result. Take your children to vote with you if you can. It’s important that the next generation understand what it’s all about.

Leader of Plaid CymruRemember that only some women got the vote in 1918 – working-class and younger women had to continue to campaign for that right – real democracy is not something that happens overnight. A hundred years on, we know that large sections of our society continue to be disillusioned and disenfranchised.

CEO of ShelterEqual choice still eludes women so often. Who wants to “have it all” when men can still just choose the best bits? The right to vote is one way in which women have an equal platform with men. Not just a voice about women’s things, not a presence that has to be dressed up pretty or sexy or “I’m not a feminist but...”, or careful not to nag. One person one vote. For everyone.

Leader of the DUPThere is huge power in voting. It can be hard to imagine living in an era when women were seen as politically inept. Every time I vote I think what a privilege it is and I find it hard to fathom those who believe it doesn’t matter.

Labour Co-operative MP for Liverpool Wavertree since 2010Every time I vote, I pause to reflect on the reasons why I can and I thank the suffragettes. I’d like to see votes for 16- to 18-year-olds. I was just a few days short of my 16th birthday when Labour swept to power in 1997. Had I been 16, I would definitely have wanted to vote in that historic landslide.

Green party peer, deputy mayor of London (2003-2004)Being in politics, I can see that voting really makes a difference. When I first got elected to the London Assembly in 2000, it wasn’t obvious until the last couple of days whether I might get elected, which was very powerful for me. One of the problems in the House of Lords is that you don’t get to vote in the general election anymore, so I have to sit on the sidelines and encourage other people.

Chief secretary to the TreasuryElections are less predictablethan they’ve ever been. People are more willing to switch parties, so it’s becoming more and more likely that your vote could be a deciding vote.

Labour MP for Brent Central since 2015As a child I always felt voting was important but I didn’t quite know why. All I knew was it was one of the few moments that I saw my mum and dad together, as my mum worked during the day and my dad worked nights. On polling day my mum would wait for my dad and I would excitedly put my coat on and hold my dad’s hand to cross the road and watch them vote.

Kerry-Anne Mendoza

Editor of the CanaryIf you don’t think voting will change things look at Trump, Hitler and the sorry state of the welfare system. But voting is also the lowest possible form of democratic engagement – getting involved in your community, your PTA, a union, really changes things. The reason corporations influence politics so much is that they lobby government every day. People need to feel that responsibility too.

Lynda Chalker

Conservative peer. MP for Wallasey 1974-1992, overseas development minister 1989-97Voting is critical if you want to take a role in your local community, and indeed in society as a whole.

Labour MP for Leicester West since 2010Your vote is your voice. It’s your chance to help determine your future, and the future of the country. I understand only too well how many people think voting doesn’t make a difference, and that politicians are all the same. But it is the way to change the world.

Patience Wheatcroft

Conservative peer, former editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal EuropeI’d feel dreadful if I didn’t use my vote, not just because people fought so hard to get it, but I want to do my part in the country I live in. I’m always upset by the low turnout we get in this country. Education is a big part of it. Having mock elections at schools is a good thing, and more politicians should go into schools.

General secretary of the British Trades Union Congress (TUC)This is described as the centenary but of course most working-class women have only had the right to vote for 90 years. I never miss a visit to the polling station. The essential egalitarianism of “one person, one vote” is still worth honouring.

Investment manager and anti-Brexit campaignerThe suffragettes risked everything – their lives, homes, marriages, children being taken into care, prison, being force-fed. They were heroines. They knew that the only things we truly own are our voices, conscience and actions. One of my aims is to encourage more women to vote, as the turnout in recent years has been shamefully low. Turnout for women went up in 2017 but it’s still not good enough.

When did you first vote?

Feminist activist and journalistWhen I first voted, I wasn’t a feminist. It was a local election and I voted for the person my mum told me to. It didn’t occur to me to think about how hard it had been for women to get the vote, how many obstacles had been overcome. So many women faced horrific mental and physical torture to make that happen. Every time I vote now, I think of them.

Dawn Primarolo

Labour peer. MP for Bristol South 1987-2015I first voted in the 1972 local government election. I went to the polling station with my parents, it was a big deal. How could anyone not vote? Does anyone want to live in a society in which their views, hopes and aspirations are invisible?

Labour MP for Leeds WestEconomist, shadow secretary of state for work and pensions (2013-2015)I first voted in 1997 and I was 18 years and three months old. I remember going to the polling station before school with a sense of pride and excitement. When I was born, in 1979, there were 19 female MPs. Today there are 208, nearly a third of the seats. I hope by the time my four-year-old daughter grows up, we’ll have 50-50 representation of women in parliament.

Labour MP for Stockport since 1992I was 24 before I was able to vote in a general election – because it wasn’t until 1970 that the voting age was reduced to 18. It didn’t produce the result I wanted but subsequent votes did. When I entered parliament in 1992 there were only 60 women MPs. Now there are 208 and we’ve had a major impact on policy and the campaign for equality.

Llin Golding

Labour peer. MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme 1986-2001When I won in a by-election in Newcastle-under-Lyme, the first vote I had in the Commons was to stop boys being beaten in school. We won by one vote. If I hadn’t won that byelection, we’d have lost it and the beating would still be happening.

Labour peer. Minister for women 1998-2001, leader of the House of Lords 1998-2001My first vote was for my mum, [Audrey Callaghan], who was a local councillor in London. People are always surprised by this because I come from a political family in which my dad [former PM James Callaghan] is better known – but it was actually for my mum that I first started knocking on doors in local elections. I do sometimes wonder whether it would be useful to have something like the Australian system, where it is compulsory to vote.

Chief executive, Fawcett SocietyThe first time I voted I was 17. I broke the law: my grandmother was housebound so I took her registration card down to the polling station in Tottenham and voted for Bernie Grant. It’s important to encourage women to participate in the democratic process. Younger women, black and minority ethnic women, single women and women with low incomes – in other words, women whose lives are most affected by the decisions of government – are far less engaged in voting than other groups.

Labour MP for Newcastle upon Tyne Central since 2010The first time I voted, I’d been a member of the Labour party for two years, I’d been elected MP for my comprehensive school in mock elections earlier that year and I had protested the devastating consequences of years of Thatcherite government. But marking my cross on a ballot paper in Newcastle was the first time I truly felt I was having my say.

Conservative MP for Basingstoke since 2005, chair of the women and equalities select committeeWhen I first voted, I was a student at LSE, living in a hall of residence in the middle of Islington. I remember many of my fellow students voting tactically and I couldn’t do that and have never been able to do that.

Labour MP and chair of the home affairs select committeeMy first vote was in 1987. I wore black to my A-level exam the next day in mourning because Labour lost so badly. The newly elected Tory government brought in the hateful Section 28 and the hated poll tax – that’s why voting matters.

Jane Robinson

Social historian specialising in the study of female pioneersWhen I first voted, in the 1979 general election, I was in my first year at Somerville College, Oxford, having come from a rural comprehensive in North Yorkshire. Margaret Thatcher was a Somervillian, not that I voted for her, but it was all very exciting, and that is what got me interested in women’s history. It took such an effort to open the door, and now we walk through it without a backward glance – or don’t walk through it at all. That’s the tragedy, that some of us don’t use the voice others struggled so hard to give us.

Christine Burns MBE

Retired activist, author of Trans BritainI was 18, still in the sixth form in 1972. I was adamant I didn’t want to go to the polling station with my parents. I went alone after asking Mum what to do; I didn’t want to make a fool of myself. Afterwards, I felt like a proper adult.

Economist, writer and director of the Centre for Labour and Social StudiesThe first time I was eligible to vote, in the 2005 general election, I spoiled my ballot. I just couldn’t vote for Labour because I was so against the Iraq war. I never really voted joyously until the 2017 general election. For the first time, the Labour party’s policies and vision for this country were something I really believed in.

Labour MP for Tooting since 2016The first time I voted, in the 1997 general election, I remember an exciting sense of possibility: I could have some say in who represented me and my family and the area that I love. Now more than ever it feels like every single vote matters. Seeing how disappointed young people were by the outcome of the EU referendum, I think they feel they do have a voice and they should use it.

Jill Pitkeathley

Labour peer, deputy speaker in the House of LordsBecause I was raised in the Channel Islands, I wasn’t allowed to vote, so I didn’t actually vote until 1964. I remember it very clearly. I found it incredibly exciting. People do have to see that their vote counts, and perhaps with the last election, and the shock result, people did see that.

When did you feel your vote made most difference? What was your most exciting voting experience?

Labour MP for Ashton-under-Lyne since 2015For me it was the 2009 European Union elections: the fascist BNP were on manoeuvres, and were expected to win in my region in north-west England. On the day of the vote I ended up in hospital expecting to give birth, but I couldn’t have lived with myself if I didn’t vote, so I left hospital to vote Labour and do my bit to keep the BNP out.

Conservative MP for South Derbyshire 1983-1997The evening I got elected in 1983 was special, but it’s the 1992 contest in South Derbyshire after I resigned from the government which still gives me goosebumps. Despite gloomy polls, turnout in our patch was a whopping 85% and we got more than 32,000 votes. Watching them pile up was a magic moment.

Labour MP for Batley and Spen since 2016My weirdest voting experience was when I voted for myself last year [to fill the seat formerly held by Jo Cox]. It was incredibly strange. Normally, after the selection process, you would just become the MP, but nine fringe parties decided to stand. So we had a very odd byelection, where I had to go around a grieving community and tell them: “I’m not your MP yet, I need your vote.” Normally it would be a celebration but after I won, everyone just went home to reflect.

Labour MP for Cardiff Central since 2015Blair’s victory in 1997 was so exciting. The next day, people were smiling and there was a huge sense of relief. In contrast, the people I met in Cardiff after the EU referendum were crying and visibly upset.

Labour MP for Don Valley since 1997Seventy-nine years on from 1918, I was among 101 Labour women MPs elected to parliament. Excited? Of course. But shocked to be only the 201st woman of all time. Knocking on doors in Don Valley, I’ve met women whose mothers attended suffragette marches. I owe a great debt to those women who faced violence, imprisonment and risk to life to secure my right to vote.

Kirstene Hair

Conservative MP for Angus since 2017The most consequential vote I have ever cast was after a long and passionate campaign for Scotland to remain in the UK, in the 2014 independence referendum. The level of engagement was unprecedented.

Leader of the Women’s Equality partyIt was in 2016, when the Women’s Equality party first ran for election across the UK. To put a cross in the box beside our logo was incredibly moving and hopeful. This centenary is an opportunity to celebrate those who fought for our rights before us, and for us to make sure the next generation of women from all races, backgrounds and experiences feel enfranchised to use their vote.

Labour MP for Bradford West since 2015There’s been a lot of disenfranchisement and disillusionment in British politics, but the 2017 general election galvanised a spirit of involvement never seen before. It brought out the women’s vote, brought out the young people, and renewed energy in democracy.

Plaid Cymru MP for Dwyfor Meirionnydd since 2015My most exciting voting experience was probably the referendum for Wales in 1999. On the night, it didn’t look like Wales was going to vote in favour of establishing its own assembly. I got up the next day cross, upset and stomping around the place, then turned on the radio and realised what had happened. I ran upstairs screaming: “We’ve done it, we’ve done it.”

Tulip Siddiq

Labour and Co-operative MP for Hampstead and Kilburn since 2015My most consequential vote was the EU referendum. I took my newborn daughter with me to the polling station, and with 75% of my constituents, I voted to remain. Though I was on the losing side of the national poll, voting with my baby in tow was a pertinent reminder of the consequences the referendum may have for future generations of women.

Danielle Rowley

Labour MP for Midlothian since 2017There was such a buzz around the 2017 general election. It was obviously really exciting for me because I was standing for the first time and it changed my life, but there was also a real change on the doorsteps and it was so exciting because more of my friends, and young people in general, were actually interested in politics.

Could the voting system be improved?

Fiona Millar

Journalist and campaignerThe voting system is pretty antiquated in a number of ways. I think it needs to be digitalised. We need to give votes to 16-year-olds, too. I also believe in proportional representation, and it’s frustrating that neither of the two main parties want to talk about that.

Labour MP for Barking since 1994The first time I voted, in Orpington in 1966, it was a tactical vote. Even though I was a member of the Labour party and an activist by then, I voted Liberal because it was the only way to beat the Tories. So I have always been a supporter of electoral reform: you want a PR system which ensures that your vote counts.

NUS presidentThe government of this country, the policy and the laws that we abide by derive their legitimacy from public participation in the democratic process. placency: so we need to constantly be challenging ourselves about how to engage the disengaged. The cross-party Representation of the People (Young People’s Enfranchisement) Bill due this May is a step in the right direction. NUS research showed that three quarters of 16 and 17 year olds would have voted in the EU referendum had they been given the chance. Now is the time to secure Votes at 16 once and for all.

Virginia Bottomley

Conservative peer. MP for South West Surrey 1984-2005No voting system is perfect, but first-past-the-post has kept Ukip and the National Front out of parliament. It also prioritises the one-to-one relationship constituents have with the person more people want to win than anyone else. That may make me sound like a dinosaur, but it’s what I believe in.

Film director and crossbench peerSixteen-year-olds should get the vote. People argue that they’ll do as their parents say or that they won’t vote. My experience of the young is that they are independent-minded and have multiple influences. Starting early is habit-forming.

Labour MP for Cynon Valley since 1984I’d like to see voting made compulsory. I’ve fought in a lot of elections, and I always find it particularly annoying when people say: “I’m not going to vote, politicians are all the same.” You remind them that they have a responsibility, that people struggled to get the vote, particularly women.

Labour MP for Redditch 1997-2010, the first female home secretary 2007-2009I used to get irritated when people – particularly women – told me they weren’t going to vote. But then I discovered that plenty of people weren’t going because they weren’t quite sure of the process. They didn’t know where they needed to go or what they needed to do – and worried that someone was going to ask them a load of questions that they didn’t want to answer. Sometimes it’s about taking people through that process and giving them a bit of confidence to do it.

Helene Hayman

Labour peer. MP for Welwyn and Hatfield 1974-1979, Lord Speaker 2006-2011I’m having a crisis of conscience over voting. All my life, I have believed in first-past-the-post. I am now wondering if this stifles the creation of new parties. I think the reason people didn’t want to vote in the last election was that they didn’t feel there was a party that was representing them, that they could trust or be inspired by. That’s a big failure.

Labour MP for Battersea since 2017, shadow minister for disabled peopleI support votes at 16. I’ve also always been a supporter of PR, but whatever voting system we have it is crucial that it is accessible to everyone. As a disabled voter I know we still have a long way to go in terms of making voting accessible to those with disabilities and long-term conditions. We need to continually be trying to remove the barriers to voting.

Layla Moran

Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon since 2017When you’ve got really safe seats, some MPs do less work than others. If you had a system where every seat was slightly unsafe, then MPs would have to reach out to a range of people to save their job, and that’s not a bad thing.

Conservative MP for Broxtowe since 2010There’s something incredibly powerful about the act of walking to the polling station and casting your vote, which is why I’m wary of making it more digital. As someone who’s been at many a count, there’s also something very powerful about seeing all those pieces of paper piled up. It shows you that it is real human beings taking part.

Which group needs most encouragement to vote?

Chair of the East London NHS Foundation Trust 2007-2012, crossbench peerIt’s often said young people need the most encouragement to vote, but I would say it’s people with very tough lives, who find it difficult to see that trailing out to vote is important when there are other hardships to deal with. Improvements in living standards would help them become more engaged. I think real deprivation and poverty are unhelpful to democracy.

Conservative MP for LoughboroughWhat the Brexit referendum has done is motivate whole new swathes of young people to vote – it showed that voting really can change results.

Yasmin Qureshi

Shadow minister for justice, Labour MP for Bolton South East since 2010I’d like to get more of the traditional working class voting – people whose families worked in mills and heavy industry and lost their jobs, the second or third generation unemployed. I work hard at that because I know you can make a difference. You can change things.

Conservative MP for Meriden since 1997I am shocked by the number of times I knock on doors to be greeted by a female voter who says she cannot be bothered, or cannot see the point of voting. I go into my short history of the suffragette movement and many have no idea about the movement or know who Emmeline Pankhurst was. This leads me to the view that we need to teach politics to everyone in school.

Labour MP for Kensington since 2017It may seem strange but I was influenced to get politically involved by nuns at school: Sister Philomena, our history teacher, and Mother Bunbury at Sacred Heart school, Hammersmith. She was a liberal and highly intelligent woman who told us: “Read everything, go to everything, and make up your own mind.” I’ve always followed her advice. Let’s give 16-year-olds the vote!

Labour MP for Ashfield since 2010The challenge now is getting young working-class people to vote. They are the most likely to tell me that voting doesn’t make a difference and that they don’t understand it anyway. Any politician who thinks that this isn’t partly our fault needs a big wake-up call.

Labour MP for North West Durham since 2017I still meet women who don’t have the confidence to vote, so we have to tell them democracy is not just about voting. Every time I bring people to the House of Commons we go to the broom cupboard where Emily Davison hid herself. Women’s struggles shouldn’t be peripheral.

Crossbench peer, lawyer, bioethicist and academicI’ve been to meetings with young people where they say that they don’t bother voting because it doesn’t make a difference. I get very angry, because when I think of how women died and struggled to get the vote, to casually dismiss it as being of no importance undermines our equality and shows no respect for history and citizenship. I think the Brexit vote, and the fact that it was relatively close, may bring home to young people how important it is to vote.

Labour and Co-operative MP for Manchester Central since 2012We should get the vote for 16-year-olds. At 16 you can get a job, pay tax and get married. It’s ridiculous, really. Get people in the habit of voting young and they’ll vote for life.

Leader of the Scottish Labour Party 2015-2017I was late to voting at 23. I didn’t think I could make any difference, and this is still an issue with young people. Look at the EU referendum. It’s clear that people at that age are in favour of freedom of movement and being part of a global community. If more of them had voted, we’d have had a different result. MPs more representative of different people would help people engage more. I feel a responsibility as a young, female, gay MP to show voters that people like them are being represented in politics.

Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley since 2015We should let 16-year-olds vote. During the 1997 election I was 16 and I campaigned till my feet bled and was gutted that I couldn’t vote. I remember feeling how unjust it was. I love voting. I’d do it every day.

Anneliese Dodds

Labour MP for Oxford East since 2017I don’t think there’s a silver bullet to change voter apathy, but the vote at 16 would bring the democratic process into schools, get kids talking about it the playground.

Are you encouraged by how women’s rights have progressed since 1918?

First minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National PartyThe 100th anniversary of women gaining the vote is one to celebrate, but it is also an occasion to look forward – both to see what more needs to be done to improve democratic participation, and to ensure the cause of gender equality more widely is won, not just in this country but around the globe.

As someone who has been involved in politics all of my adult life, I have always been a voter, but for too many people the simple act of voting remains remote. The reasons for non-participation in elections are many, but all too often it is those who are most marginalised in society – and who ironically stand to gain the most – who choose not to exercise their democratic rights. It is incumbent on all of us who hold public office to try and change that.

Conservative peer. Co-chair of the party 2010-2012 and the first female Muslim to attend CabinetWhat happened a century ago gave women the opportunity to have a say, but we’re still fighting for women to be heard – they’re two completely different things. We have women in positions of authority, but are they policy-makers or do they simply become instruments of policy? I don’t want women just to have a seat around the table, I want them to also have a voice around the table.

Preet Gill

Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston since 2017It’s taken 100 years to elect a Sikh woman to parliament, which says a lot about representation in British politics today and how much more there is to do.

Conservative MP for South Northamptonshire, leader of the House of CommonsWomen are doing well – we have a female PM, a female first minister of Scotland, a female home secretary, we’re about to have our first female Black Rod, we have female members of the Lords and of the Commons, a female head of the Met and a female president of the supreme court. But we could be doing more. It’s an improving situation but there’s still a good way to go.

Ann Taylor

Labour peer. MP for Dewsbury 1987-2005, first female leader of the House of CommonsHaving women to vote for in politics is very important, but we have to make sure these role models aren’t presented like superwomen. We’ve got to get across that ordinary women can do this.

Mary Creagh

Labour MP for Wakefield since 2005In my first parliamentary election, on 5 May 2005, I became only the 271st woman ever elected to parliament. Our numbers still pale in comparison to our male colleagues. However the simple fact of our presence in parliament, a different way of speaking, working and doing business, has changed things for good.

Commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission 2006-08Being a disabled woman, I know what discrimination feels like but I sometimes think I’m more disempowered as a woman than as a disabled person – which is quite interesting because some would expect it to be the other way round.

Labour MP for Garston and Halewood since 1997One hundred years isn’t that long, is it? I’ve been in parliament now for more than 20 years, and when you think that it’s within a lifetime before then that women couldn’t even vote, I have to stop and marvel sometimes. Having the vote doesn’t solve all the problems women have, as we’ve seen recently across the world, but it is a fundamental stepping stone to equality and fairness and progress.

Do we undervalue the vote in this country?

Labour MP for Derby South since 1983We undervalue the right to vote in this country and forget how much trouble women went through to secure it. In South Africa, after apartheid, people queued for hours to vote but here, a lot of people seem to regard it as an optional extra.

Janet Fookes

Conservative peer, previously MP for Merton and Morden (1970-1974) and Plymouth Drake (1974‑1997)When voting is so easy to do, it’s easy to undervalue it. You only have to look at the contrast when people got the vote in South Africa, they travelled for miles and queued for hours in the hot sun. It really meant a great deal.

Margot James

Conservative MP for Stourbridge since 2010, minister for digital, culture, media and sportWhen I’m campaigning for general elections, I do find that people take it seriously. It’s a shame that people don’t regard local elections in the same light. The turnouts are quite poor and it’s such a pity because local elections have a big effect on people’s lives.